The Green Party needs to be careful about falling into a pattern of sounding
too much like a liberal or social democratic party, especially around the
issue of big government solutions to problems.

In Germany we saw a coalition between the Greens and the Social Democrats,
but many in the U.S. are not clear about what the latter party represents.
Greens need to know in order to understand how our political tendency is
differentiated.

Social democracy historically has been the reformist branch of the
international socialist movement. The debate: Reform or Revolution? arose
soon after the inception of the Socialist International (founded in 1889)
and by 1920 had split the movement into the Communist wing and the Social
Democratic wing.

Most of the original socialist parties had been called "Social Democratic."
After the 1917-1920 schism (in the wake of the Russian Revolution), the
revolutionary-faction parties started to call themselves Communist while the
reformist-faction parties retained the name Social Democratic (or,
alternatively in some cases, called themselves "Labor" or just "Socialist").

The Social Democratic parties of Germany and Sweden (and many other
countries), Labor parties of Britain and Israel (and other countries),
Socialist parties of France and Spain (and other countries), as well as
organizations such as the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) all belong
to what's still, after all these years, called the Socialist International.
But none of these parties still advocate what originally was the essence of
the movement: collective ownership of the means of production.

After the 1917 schism the Communist Parties had formed into a Communist
International, which existed from around 1920 until about the mid-1950s.
Those parties continued to hold to the idea of extensive socialization of
the means of production, while the Social Democratic parties in most
countries instead just advocated for a strong public sector which could
regulate and countervail the power of the large privately held industrial
enterprises (i.e., instead of calling for public ownership of the
enterprises).

Now Communism is all but gone as an historical force (the new, more radical,
left-of-social-democratic party in Germany wouldn't think to call itself
"Communist" - it just calls itself the Left Party). Social democracy still
thrives as a political tendency, but the Social Democratic parties have
become quite establishment. They govern ideologically a little to the left
of how the U.S. Democratic Party does (they advocate more in the way of
welfare statism, a stronger public sector, etc.).

The Green parties arose in the 1970s and '80s as leftish alternatives to the
Communist, Socialist, Labor, Social Democratic, Liberal, etc. parties.

"Alternative" in what sense? Some think the Greens are essentially liberals
or social democrats who happen to pay a little more attention than most to
environmentalism. Some (like Rush Limbaugh!) think the Greens are
essentially eco-socialists. But among the hundred or so Green parties
established worldwide, I've never heard of one that advocates extensive
socialization of the means of production (at an industrial scale).

The Green parties were formed to represent something new.

Among our Key Values, I think that the following are commonly shared with
the other left-of-center parties:

That's why it makes sense to see the Green Party distributing a
bumpersticker that sums up the distinctive points of our movement as
follows:

Ecology and Community
. The Green Party .

(several of the state parties offer that bumpersticker)

Most of the world's liberal, social democratic, and socialist parties tend
to be too sanguine about big-government solutions to problems. This is
precisely where conservatives score points against them and gain support -
by criticizing the leftist parties as Big Government lovers.

I think the communitarian orientation of the Greens ought to differentiate
us by correcting that problem. But I'm afraid that it rarely does - because
we don't emphasize it enough. The call to downsize political units or
devolve power is sometimes felt to be "too outside the mainstream discourse."

The German Greens originally (during the early 1980s) advocated a "Europe of
the regions," i.e. the breakup of the larger nation-states into bioregional
units. After gaining entrance to parliament they de-radicalized much of
their program and dropped the regionalization idea.

I realize that it's a "new paradigm" type of notion which will take some
time to gain credibility. Someone wrote me that size of government should
not be an issue:

>The point is democracy: If we need art and
>recreation centers, we vote to build art and
>recreation centers. If we need a school, we vote to
>build a school. If we need a park, we create a
>park. If we need medical centers, we build medical
>centers. This is governance. Governance need not be
>a powerful and alienated 'state' but could be an
>integrated, interactive, responsive and
>cooperative form of social dialoguing - big,
>small, or whatever the scale of government.

I responded:

"Your example of recreation centers, schools, parks, and medical centers
involve decisions that can be made at a local level. So your ideas re: 'If
we need art and recreation centers, we vote to build art and recreation
centers. If we need a school, we vote to build a school' etc. are fine
because those decisions can be handled by local democracy.

"You and I are in agreement that the goal is democracy. I think we agree
that it can be achieved at the level of local government - where 'an
integrated, interactive, responsive and cooperative form of social
dialoguing' among the populace is feasible.

"But how about mass production decisions and decisions involving things like
large-scale roadbuilding, military expenditures, etc. Is it feasible to have
such 'social dialoguing' when the context is giant industrial enterprises or
a giant national government? I maintain that it's not feasible and that
history shows no example of such feasibility."

There are things big government can do well. There was an article in the New
York Times the other day about how efficiently the state-owned railway
system in India is run (and we know that the trains ran on time under
Mussolini!). Medicare in this country has lower overhead costs than does
private insurance coverage.

But is "Efficiency of Bureaucracy" a key value of the Greens? Centralized
state decision-making can at times be efficient (though most of the time big
government legislation is egregiously filled with pork) - but my contention
is that it can never be democratic in the sense that Greens care about,
which is a grassroots, participatory form of democracy.

Informally I believe most Greens tend to be appropriately critical of big
government, but it's questionable whether or not Greens do a good job of
translating those sentiments into policy positions. Regarding the latter, I
think we need to be clear that our communitarian values mean we prefer
decentralist to big government solutions.

This has important implications in regard to economic relations:

Socialists advocate social ownership of the means of production as a
principle. While Greens should not reject social ownership, we don't hold it
as a universal principle. Public ownership *can* be perfectly workable -
democratic, not bureaucratic - as long as it is community-based.

In fact, Socialists and Greens share quite a few values, including economic
democracy - subjective control of the economy. The idea of gaining popular
control by "expropriating the expropriaters" was one of the primary ideas
leading to the genesis of the socialist movement. Greens fully agree with
the goal of gaining popular control - but we differ with the socialists in
regard to the question of how to achieve that goal.

I think that analysis of the failure of socialism leads to the conclusion
that scale was a major unrecognized factor (though not the only one). Scale:
Can tens or hundreds of millions of people conduct "an integrated,
interactive, responsive and cooperative social dialogue" or act as a
coherent "agency of control" of the economy? I don't think so.

In a communitarian context public ownership of the means of production is
fine, and in a Green world of decentralized polities (call them regions,
call them mini-states, call them bioregions, whatever) I bet you'd see some
that prefer mostly public ownership. Alternatively, in a communitarian
context private ownership of the means of production is fine, and in a Green
world I bet you'd see some polities that prefer an economic system based on
mostly private ownership. Advocacy of public or private ownership (i.e. of a
particular model of property relations) does not need to be a principle of
Green ideology. Participatory-communitarian subjective control of economic
forces *does* need to be a principle and is expressed in our key value:
Community-based Economics.